


nest

by mediumbear



Series: Before I See Too Much [6]
Category: Kuroko no Basuke | Kuroko's Basketball
Genre: Children, Domestic Fluff, Gen, Happy Birthday Midorima!, M/M, Married Couple, Original Character(s), Parenthood
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-07
Updated: 2020-07-07
Packaged: 2021-03-05 02:28:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,944
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25127002
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mediumbear/pseuds/mediumbear
Summary: Midorima's child is the best birthday gift he could have.
Relationships: Midorima Shintarou/Takao Kazunari
Series: Before I See Too Much [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1050521
Comments: 4
Kudos: 40





	nest

**Author's Note:**

> Happy birthday Midorima! This fic was a long time coming so I'm glad it can be used to celebrate a lovely day~

“Takao,” he calls, the origin of his voice at first a mystery between the paper-screen walls of their home, but Takao duly finds his husband perched on the wooden patio that divides his office-room from the opening to the garden. Midorima sits looking out upon his handiwork: flowerbeds thoroughly weeded and re-planted, a rake left standing in the soil where there is, perhaps, intent to return to the vegetable-patch and check how the cucumber-plants are doing. Their flowers are little yellow pops amongst the thick green of their winding stems.

“What’s up? Hey, you want something to drink? It’s hot out here,” Takao remarks before Midorima quietly, gently, extends a gloved hand next to him and pats once, twice. When he sits obediently, cross-legged on the warm wood, he spies a smudge of dry earth across Midorima’s cheek, sweat rolling down his neck even beneath the straw sun-hat he always wears when working the garden. So focused, he thinks fondly, when he stares out with that mildest frown at the greenery, the way he always judges anything he works on. He’s his own harshest critic.

“I want to ask you-- no, in fact, I want to speak to you about something.” Midorima says before he turns to look at him. “Something I have been thinking about.”

“Oh?” 

He stares at him, his hands perfectly still. Normally anybody would start to fidget under such scrutiny but after the first seven years of married life, Takao thinks he’s seen everything Midorima could possibly scare him with.

“Would you like to have children?”

Takao feels like he, too, has been digging at the earth in boiling May-morning heat.

“Children?!” He broils, then laughs nervously, rubbing the back of his neck -- he wasn’t expecting a hit like this when he’d heard Midorima’s stern voice while watching daytime TV in the kitchen. “I- I mean, yeah, I would, I mean, you know, I think it’s nice to… have kids! Being a parent-- that’d be, you know, that’d be intense but it’s just right! It’s not the easiest thing, you know, for s-someone like _me_ to have one but I think I’d make a pretty good dad! Right?”

But Midorima’s silence is telling, and Takao holds his breath.

“You and me, you mean?” he blurts, “Together?”

Midorima keeps his gaze on him then glances back to his precious flowerbed. “You are… so very good with children, Kazunari. If it’s with you then I… I believe even I could manage a challenge like that.”

“Wait, you-- Shin-chan, hey, hey now,” Takao’s babbling, a terrible habit, his heart straining in his chest, “Are you-- are you only saying this because you think I want them but you don’t? Or? What do you mean? You want to be a dad? Or like, you want to have a family? Or, you know I want to be a dad and you’re okay with that?!”

He feels the rough cotton and the sealed-rubber coating of Midorima’s gloved hand before he sees the earnest, the nervous, the wide-eyed look on Midorima’s face.

“With you. Only with you.”

“Shin-chan, you wanna be a dad? Really?”

“Yes,” he says rather sternly, then-- screws up his mouth in nervousness in a move that makes Takao’s stomach flip, and the knock-on effect is the red blush that’s teasing at the tips of Midorima’s ears blooming fully across his face, his lip trembling. “So you can be one, too. The two of us.”

“With a third one,” Takao replies quietly, eyebrows raising towards his hairline.

“A family,” Midorima whispers and squeezes his hand.

***

“She’s _tiny_ ,” Takao marvels at the little thing with her tiny fists grabbing at nothing in his sister’s arms, born a week or two early because honestly she must have wanted to come into this world with a bang -- with the drama that only the sight of a doctor and a nurse both running screaming out of their practice and into their car can elicit. 

“She’s an Aquarius,” Midorima comments on his other side from where he hasn’t been able to let go of Takao’s knee with a vice grip for hours now. It’s starting to go numb but it’s a small price to pay to be able to watch the baby wake up.

“Listen, you,” His sister, Setsuna -- the one remaining Takao child since Kazunari legally took on Midorima’s name -- frowns, but she’s used to his analysing habits when it comes to birthdays. Luckily her personality is as strong as her older brother’s or she never would have agreed to be their surrogate on the terms that Midorima wouldn’t be too overbearing. He respected that. Not that he would have dared to upset a single member of his in-laws…

“Ahh, don’t mind him,” Takao grins, even though she doesn’t, “He’s just salty ‘cause she was this close to being a Pisces. We could’ve been a water sign-only family! But you wanted to be the odd-one-out and cause a fuss, didn’t you? Diiiidn’t youuu? Tiny baby girl,” he coos, wiggling a finger at her tiny fists although she’s still mostly asleep, dozing at her mother’s chest after an exhaustingly long feed, the first of her new life.

“Typical Aquarius,” Midorima comments again, and Takao can’t hold back a cackle as Setsuna frowns and pretends to sulk and hold the baby away from her, causing Midorima to look genuinely pained and guilty, silently hanging his head in shame. He squeezes the lucky item in his hand, a bottle of iced tea, not that Setsuna will be touching caffeine for a short while yet.

But Takao is right. To say that they are a family, no matter what the stars say about their alignments. Setsuna will be her mother, and she will always know that, and they will be close -- a unit, the girl under Midorima and Takao’s care. A huge responsibility. So small, but her existence weighs more than the planets. She will draw up more than the oceans, the calls of wolves. Greater than gravity, the way she pulls their hearts even when she cries.

There’s a noise suddenly, and when neither Midorima or Takao can judge if it’s just another of Setsuna’s tired sighs after a difficult labour, their eyes fly wide open seeing the little girl move. She opens her mouth and whines gently, then her eyes follow, big and bright and staring directly at the two of them sitting by the bed.

And she stares, and she stares. Takao is the first to put a hand out, his breath caught in his throat for the very-- the very happeningness of the moment, and without delay the baby reaches out and curls her china-doll hand around his index finger.

The centre of their universe. The unspoken agreement between the two; an immeasurably large decision.

***

Midorima hates surprises, which is a fact about himself that he has unfortunately had to learn to confront on a day-to-day basis ever since the child became a facet of his life. Not that he could ever blame her. He knows that children do what they are wont to do, as sure as fate itself is decided. She tumbles backwards out of chairs and tries to eat bugs far more often than he insists he ever did as a child, but his parents attest to him being a different sort. Even they can’t help softening and making babytalk at her when he brings her over for the first time.

Suzume is her name. Considering that it was Takao’s family who gave them this opportunity it was only right to honour them and to continue the theme of his name, a tiny and auspicious sparrow to his keen-eyed hawk, at least unless she decides her dad’s maiden name was cooler and chooses that one day. It was second in choice to ‘Tori’. Takao had burst into crying fits of laughter the very first time Midorima mentioned it, his nose buried in a baby names dictionary.

“You wanna call her Tori?! Really? She’s gonna be an adult one day, you know!”

“It will be an elegant name even as she grows up,” he’d frowned back. But Takao choked on his laughter.

“You do realise kids are horrible bullies at school, yeah? They’re gonna call her _yakitori_! Heck, _I’m_ gonna call her _yakitori_! It’s gonna be hilarious! What a name! ‘Tori, Midorima Tori-- hey, honey, you got a little sunburn on your holiday, now you’re grilled _yakitori_!’ Oh man, hahahaha, Shin-chan, you’re a comedic genius!”

There were more tactful ways of opening his eyes to the responsibilities of parenthood, but Midorima had to cede to that logic.

She shares Takao’s looks, which is to say, she has Setsuna’s looks -- her hair is fine and a rich, inky black colour, her eyes growing out of their baby brown hue into some autumnal amber, and always looking at everything so keenly the way his and Setsuna’s flicker about a room playfully while they have a conversation, the child taking turns bouncing on his or her knees as she gurgles.

“Her first word is definitely gonna be that thing Midorimacchi says,” Kise had once said to Takao on his and Aomine’s first visit, Aomine crawling on all fours in the middle of their front room as the toddler rode on his back and screamed in delight, her little hands grabbing at the back of his shirt. Takao snorted but Midorima didn’t understand the joke.

“What thing?” he narrowed his eyes.

“You know, that thing, the accent you have! The _‘na no’_ thing!”

“What if you’re right? There’s no way I’m teaching her to say anything else, it’ll be hilarious!! A tiny little Shin-chan… A Shin-shin-chan? A Shin-chan-chan!” Takao snickered.

Midorima huffed. “Whatever she says, it will be only of her own accord, in fact.”

“There! That thing!”

“Shin-chan has that influence, doesn’t he?!”

Foolish, Midorima thinks, to insist that parents have any more influence on the way that their children wish to speak than the way that they eat. If it really worked like that then he would have his own poor table manners to blame for every time young Suzume rubbed her puréed pumpkin into her hair instead of eating it. 

She grows, how she grows, bigger every day, flourishing like a… like a… Midorima can never bring himself to compare her to a crop in his garden. Words have never been his strong point, nor poetry, and the way that she tumbles roly-polys down the tatami-floored hallways of their home and demands cuddles in a not-so-verbose yet piercing, authoritative voice at the age of barely one, is hardly that of a vegetable. So sweet and strong -- he understands how Princess Kaguya was so beloved, emerging from that bamboo. The strength of Momotarou and all his companions wrapped up in the blush and soft skin of a peach.

And he learns. He learns about himself, about her, about life, about his husband. He had taken for granted the fact that Takao did not roll about and kick in his sleep, since he himself never moves an inch once he has removed his glasses with his right hand and laid down in bed. It’s that lucky coincidence that means that she can sleep between them in their futon, and so her every dream and nightmare can be witnessed close-up. For the first time in his life he cannot drift off peacefully once he is down. He gazes at her, in the fuzziness of his struggling short-sightedness, inches from his face, and after a few weeks of watching her rest, he realises that Takao has been staring back at him over her head all this time, too.

***

Her first word is her very own name and Midorima swells with pride. Although Takao was hoping for a ‘papa’ or ‘dad’ or something similar -- having claimed ‘papa’ for himself and assigning _‘otousan’_ to Midorima, the less casual father of the pair -- nothing could make him happier than knowing that she listens, and learns, remembers, and knows.

“Chushu,” she announces one day in her high chair, slapping the tomato sauce-smeared bib on her front with her pudgy little palm, “Chu-me,”

“What is it, Suzume, you finished up? You want your juice?” Takao picks up her spoon from where she’s flung it to the ground and hands her a new clean one from the set of five they always keep at the breakfast table.

“Chushume, chushume,” she giggles, nodding and patting her own sticky cheeks, and Midorima flings a hand out to grip Takao’s arm as they both realise, she isn’t merely babbling, she is _repeating her name._

The names come more easily than words after that as she grapples with the different syllables of folks and characters. Not animals or colours or numbers, no, that would be boring. With an unparalleled focus she repeats the word over and over until the person in question feels like they should rename themselves just to make it easier for her. Murasakibara holds her tiny blossom-petal hands in his huge ones, waving them up and down in the time of his gentle murmur, “Mu-ra-sa-ki-ba-raaaa,”

“Shakiba!”

“Close enough,” he pets her head and she frowns, trying again.

Kise comes home to Aomine sobbing on the couch, clutching his phone in one hand and holding his chest in the other, and checks the video message he has playing on loop, sent by Midorima.

 _“Go on, kid, show your uncles what you’ve learnt!”_ Takao is encouraging her, then after a shy moment, she grapples with the phone, the camera showing her tiny face enlargened like a huge peach.

 _“Kiche!”_ she shouts, _“A-wo-mi-ne!”_

She really is powerful, they note, with her long list of men vanquished by her battle cries, Kise joining Aomine on the couch.

***

In a few weeks’ time, it will have been eighteen months since their world expanded for a new addition to their family. It is no time at all, really, Midorima thinks -- eighteen months were only a fraction of his studies. More than twice the amount of time required for her to be born. Less than the time Takao spent shadowing before he was able to work as a fully-fledged nurse in the clinic.

At the weekend he always follows the same routine: waking up, putting on his glasses, brewing a pot of tea - one cup for him, one will be for Takao when he gets the chance to emerge from the futon with Suzume weighing on his chest like a gargoyle - sitting on the patio to sip it and to plan the morning ahead, cross-referencing with his gardening planning notebook. Oha-Asa airs twenty minutes after the weather forecast so he will work with what he has to hand. 

This morning is only different because his age has changed upon waking, now solidly a member of the thirties' club. Almost in preparation for the cloying sweets or rich breakfast or whatever Takao typically concocts for him on such a day, his tea this morning is an oolong. Hopefully Takao also enjoys this new favourite of his. 

New interests. Those occur in his life more frequently thanks to Suzume. New tunes in his head from children’s TV programmes, new ways of describing the everyday objects that she points out on their strolls. New likes. New dislikes. He feels very much rearranged, the way he imagines a caterpillar feels inside its chrysalis.

He hasn’t had a birthday on a Saturday for a while. This will not change the routine later, of her breakfast and of the news and a visit to the shops along a certain road with a certain dog-walker with a soft and fluffy dog whose name still eludes her pronounciation, but it leaves room for opportunity that a weekday does not.

On the patio he comes to the last few drops of his tea before the leaf-dust irritates his mouth with their astringency. It’s misty this morning; he will work on the cucumbers again before the sun dries up the air. Behind him there is a stirring, and when he glances back he notices it isn’t from Takao having gone back to bed after Suzume wanted to go potty, but of the paper-screen door being slid open gently and from it emerging his family -- Suzume toddling so carefully on her unsteady feet, holding an envelope in both hands. Behind her Takao is carrying a stack of pancakes but he catches Midorima’s eye and with the plate in his hand, the other tenderly pushing Suzume’s back, he gestures for him to ‘shhh’ and pretend that he hasn’t seen anything.

So, duly, he does. It’s a parent’s duty to help carry the children’s goals to term, where they can, where they can make it possible. A birthday surprise, he thinks. He doesn’t like surprises but she isn’t to understand that -- children will do what they want, he knows. He sets down his teacup and awaits some inevitable tap on the shoulder as he hears her bare feet patter across the tatami.

“Dad,” he hears, and it’s lucid, like he heard it from within his head and not another’s voice; Midorima turns around slowly, in shock, to look at her little face.

Her bright round face, her long eyelashes that Takao always jokes are ‘Shin-chan-lashes’ and not just something that girls have.

“Hab-py,” she tries, hesitates, looks up at Takao who is towering over her as she stands between his legs--

“Go on, kid, you know what you’re doing!”

She fidgets shyly then holds out the card with both hands, the addressee a great big scribble on the front with lime-green crayon. With resolution, with strength that brings a rush of emotion to Midorima’s chest--

“Hab-py bir-day, Dad.”


End file.
